The Planning Board on Tuesday night unanimously approved a downtown strategic vision plan element for the city’s master plan, which now will head to City Council.

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Editor’s note: This post focuses primarily on public comments during Tuesday’s special meeting of the Planning Board where the strategic plan was presented and discussed. Over the coming weeks, look for posts about different sections of the plan in an effort to present it in digestible chunks. The 94-page plan can be viewed in its entirety here.

The 7-0 vote came after more than two hours of questions and comments from commissioners and residents. Planner Leigh Fleming of Heyer Gruel & Associates opened Tuesday’s special meeting of the Planning Board — held via Zoom — with a presentation of the 94-page plan, which lasted almost an hour, followed by about 20 minutes of comments and questions from board members. That was followed by public comments and questions from seven residents that lasted about 45 minutes.

The Red Bank-based firm was awarded a $63,000 contract in June to create the downtown vision plan. The plan takes stock of what’s downtown. “The real purpose of the document is to say what is here, what we’ve done, and where we want to go,” Fleming said during her presentation. “And based on where we want to go, how are we going to get there?”

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis was established via recommendations and surveys. The plan, dated Jan. 26, includes more than 550 responses to a survey conducted from Aug. 9 through Sept. 10.

The top three things mission downtown, according to survey results was:

• Shopping
• Grocery store
• Recreation

The plan identified 14 “opportunities sites” downtown, goals and objectives, recommended projects and strategies. Editor’s note: Future posts will go into more detail on each of these sections of the report.

Board member Chris Brown liked the presentation but questioned if it’s trying to do too much. “What exactly we want to look like, the demographics downtown, who we are trying to attract. Right now, we’re trying to appease everything.” He emphasized a “focus on what you want to accomplish instead of trying to do everything.”

“This is a policy document and prioritization does have to take place,” Fleming said. “Some of these also have different timelines. Certain things if we start tomorrow wouldn’t happen for a few years,” she said.

“Part of the purpose of a master plan is that it functions as an enabling document of where we want to go. Just because something is in this document, it doesn’t have to be done exactly as it is in here,” Fleming said. For example, there might be other options for pocket park locations but since they are Blue Acres properties and can’t be developed anyway, it might be a good option for pocket parks.

There will be greater detail when it comes time for City Council to create ordinances to implement the plan, board attorney Karl Kemm said.

Longtime Planning Board member William Hering described the plan as an “overall footprint” to set the stage to start doing things. “It won’t happen overnight, and it ‘s gonna take awhile. Downtown took a long time,” he said.

“Too much too soon can be a lot,” Orchard Street resident Jennifer Truppa-Cocuzza said during the public comment portion, and liked some of the ideas in the plan. “I like the old Rahway, I grew up in the ’60s when there were shops for everything,” she said. “Lloyd Garrison’s paintings — that’s what I’d love to see in Rahway again.”

Marlene Hamm of West Inman Avenue urged the board to be realistic.  “I do feel like it’s wrapping fancy buzzwords around a package just to get more buildings put in town. I understand development but let’s be realistic about what’s going on in town. We have a theater that was built in a flood plain,” she said. “I don’t believe in more development currently especially with the pandemic.”

When the city changes ordinances, it’s taking steps to allow things to exist or not to exist, Fleming said. Opportunity sites identified in the plan in some cases are owned by the city but the private market still exists. “The overall role that the city has is as projects come in, by having a set of things that they need, they’re in a position to negotiate,” she said. “The city itself isn’t necessarily building something, it’s relying on outside forces. Generally, part of that is, the types of businesses that may exist in three years that we don’t know about.”

Lifelong resident and retired theatrical designer Michael Smanko of Richard Boulevard has been part of Rahway through many eras of planning, including the Rahway Center Partnership in the 1990s. “Many of things we hoped for then still have not happened. I like the optimistic point of view but some of it is perhaps too large of a wish list,” he said. “Twenty-five years ago, we were talking about live-work artist housing.”

“It’s good to think optimistically, and to dream big, but I think we need to prioritize as things as what things might be able to be done sooner than decades. Having seen it, it’s taken that long,” Smanko said.

If the plan is not an emergency, Andrew Garcia Phillips of Campbell Street suggested the Planning Board hold off on a vote and reach out on different forums to get more public input before anything is passed. He said there doesn’t seem to be much consideration for green space, with hardly any significant park spaces downtown. “Was there anyone at the table speaking for less development? Clearly there are people who were speaking for more development.”

“While it’s true one of the goals is public participation, that’s not exclusive to this plan, that’s all the time,” Fleming said, calling it an ongoing journey of the Zoning and Planning boards. “This is not the city building projects, it’s enabling.” The plan must be flexible because different properties come up at different times and some projects fall through. “It’s all fluid,” Fleming said.

Hering did not see the benefit of delaying a vote on the plan, instead allowing City Council to move to the next steps, which will have public input as well. “You gotta start some place. I don’t know if we table this, what we’re gonna gain,” he said.

“This is a living document,” board member Eric Miles said. “If you look at this document 20 years ago, you would have a lot of the same,” he said.

Miles recalled growing up on Essex Street and his first vision of downtown was a burned-out diner and four liquor stores. Among the first projects constructed as part of redevelopment was Essex Street Mews, which had been a vacant lot where neighborhood kids played. That was the first time he went to City Council to voice opposition but “time has proved me wrong.” Now, there’s a different set of problems that downtown faces, like parking, Miles said.

To get to the “meat and potatoes” of the plan, Brown said he would support the resolution and push it forward to get to more detailed dialogue.

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